California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed two bills aimed at protecting children from the misuse of artificial intelligence for creating harmful sexual imagery of minors.
The new laws aim to close legal loopholes regarding AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery and clarify that child pornography is illegal even if it’s AI-generated.
The big picture: The bills received overwhelming bipartisan support and make it a felony offense to possess or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse images.
- Newsom also signed two additional bills to strengthen laws on revenge porn, making it illegal for adults to create or share AI-generated explicit deepfakes without consent and requiring social media platforms to allow users to report such content.
What they’re saying: Asm. Marc Berman (D–Menlo Park), who authored one of the bills, emphasized that AI used to create harmful images revictimizes children and should not be tolerated.
- “Child sexual abuse material must be illegal to create, possess, and distribute in California, whether the images are AI generated or of actual children,” Berman said in a statement. “AI that is used to create these awful images is trained from thousands of images of real children being abused, revictimizing those children all over again.”
